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Fiat currency has evolved from being an I.O.U. backed by real commodities, to worthless paper. On the other hand, crypto-currency began life as a worthless str
by anonymousiam 6y ago
Fiat currency has evolved from being an I.O.U. backed by real commodities, to worthless paper.
On the other hand, crypto-currency began life as a worthless stream of numbers, but is now (mysteriously) worth quite a bit of cash.
- asciimike 6y ago"Worth" I think is the key word here. Just like fiat currencies, it's only worth as much as people think it is, which is much more volatile than the Dollar, Euro, or Yen (or Yuan). Per the David Graeber quote on the above, "It's more a speculative commodity than a viable currency." Which is generally how I view it...
- seibelj 6y agoI would argue cryptocurrencies are so much more than simple stores of value that it (luckily) keeps a lot of rich and/or powerful people in the upper echelons of finance confused and dismissive. If they truly understood it would have been banned a long time ago.
- SkyMarshal 6y agoFiat isn't worthless paper, and cryptocurrency's stream of numbers was never worthless either. Both have utility and usefulness, and value proportional to that. Usefulness creates demand, demand creates value, and demand/supply = quantity of value. The comparative utility and value of fiat vs crypto is a fascinating rabbit hole.